The Land of Observances
by The Blue Footed Booby
Summary: The Bird of Time part four: The Bird flies on, and nothing can last forever, not even for Kino the Traveler.
1. Chapter 1

_(Temporary note: This will be part four of _The Bird of Time.._. I think. I regret that chapter three has not yet been completed, and progress is slow. Thank you for your patience - BfB.)_

.

"Hi Kino, how's the studying going?"

"Not bad. We're leaving."

"You're quitting already?"

"Not even close."

* * *

_**The Land of Observances**_

_**- Right of Initiation**_

* * *

The girl who called herself Kino the Traveler, for want of a family name, had discovered a week ago that the latest place she was touring offered free education to all children, even if those children came from another country. After reviewing course syllabi and some consideration, she hid away her emancipated minor ID card, and asked Hermes if they could halt their travels for a little while.

"You're asking my approval?" Hermes had said.

"Why so surprised? You are my primary teacher, 'thrice-great Hermes.'" Kino patted his handlebars, and quoted, for the first time and without irony, the honorific Hermes' peers had used.

"Kino, since we're such good friends, I'd rather you not use that title. I'm glad you appreciate me, but I don't want it to distance us."

Kino nodded with a smile. "I'll start off with algebra. Then I'll be able to move on to chemistry and trigonometry. Finish off with calculus and physics."

"Ambitious! Why the sudden interest? Does this have something to do with those 'high school' dreams of yours?"

"Maybe my subconscious is trying to tell me something. I don't like the idea of half the people we meet having such an advantage. Sure, I have it all over 'em with languages and knowledge of the world. Thanks to your reading aloud during our trips these days, I'm sure catching up on literature."

Hermes, it turned out, was a superb storyteller, and she wasn't about to turn down the opportunity to pass long riding hours so pleasantly. Rousseau had emerged as a favorite, though she'd also discovered a rousing antipathy to Heinlein. How Hermes could read from books stashed in the saddlebags was one of the things she chose not to question.

"Besides, it'll give my sore arm more time to heal."

"Well, if you think you can keep up with all that study," Hermes answered, "I'll help you with your homework in the evenings."

Kino had even donned the female clothing she usually kept for disguise. "Wouldn't do to get shoved into the boy's locker room."

But, by the end of the first week, Kino announced their departure.

"I'm surprised! You sounded so resolute. Usually once you start a project, you don't give up."

"Point of pride," Kino nodded. "I'm not giving up. I purchased textbooks. You'll just hafta teach me, Hermes."

"Something's upset you. C'mon, out with it."

"I can't stand teenagers!" Kino spat as she kick-started the engine.

Hermes laughed. "You are a teenager."

"Not like that I'm not! They're arrogant and insolent, but they're so ignorant and immature. Ugh! Because their land's laws require everyone under a certain age to be in school, they treat it like some kinda part-time incarceration, not like the privilege it is. Some of 'em don't even wash." Kino hissed her disgust. As a traveler, she often went without bathing, but once back in civilization, she reverted to her fastidious upbringing.

"So the teachers are forced to regiment 'em like it was a prison. Between them treating me like a child, and the children taking out their frustrations on each other, I'm completely disillusioned with 'universal education.' In fact, it's barbaric."

"Whew, that bad?" Hermes almost pointed out how backwards the towns they'd visited always were if they lacked schools, but he stopped himself. That was a debate for another time, when his rider wasn't venting like a geyser.

"Well, you can't study algebra from the back of a motorcycle. How about an hour a day after our rides, or in the early morning when we stop?"

"Deal. Hold me to it."

"Excellent."

So they abandoned the Land of Schools, as Kino had mentally dubbed it. Someday she hoped to write a memoir, as professor Choi had suggested, and had already jotted down notes as a sort of sketchy journal. But given how often she had unflattering things to say about a place, she'd decided to leave the country names vague, with a few exceptions – Veldelval for example.

So, on their way to the next destination, in the waning days of April, Kino made her initial foray into the Land of Balanced Equations.

* * *

The next city she'd eagerly anticipated. Other travelers they'd met on the road had told of impressive ancient temples. Kino had grown fond of such relics, and wanted to compare these to the 'home of Kee-lee-lei' that had so impressed and charmed her.

She preferred to keep Hermes with her, both for company, and for quick escapes, if needed. But this place was nestled on a hilltop, and space was at a premium, so they insisted on bicycles, horses, or small horse-drawn buggies within city limits. In fact, the whole place had something of a restrained, rural feeling, as if they'd been exposed to higher technology, and deliberately chosen to remain rustic. Kino found this inconvenient, but quaint and quirky. She was obliged to leave Hermes at the inn. Honestly, it was fine with her. Looked like quite a party going on, and she had a pleasant presentiment that this would be a memorable three days.

Without her even mentioning her plan to visit the shrines, the innkeeper offered the most singular advice. "I'd avoid the temples today. The Rites are in progress."

"The what?"

"It's a ritual. It's harmless, but at your age, you might not want to see it."

Despite the warning, Kino still felt a dreadful shock that afternoon, when she inevitably followed a cheerful song and a parade of adorable costumes, only to unexpectedly find one of the temples. This edifice was more forbidding than she expected, tiered like a colossal staircase of gleaming marble. A crowd had gathered.

One girl, a year or two younger than her, stood in a tumbrel in a simple white dress, her wrists and ankles loosely bound, watching and waiting her turn. The other girl writhed over an altar on a stage-like raised platform, dangling by her ankles, her nakedness covered only with blood, and tormented without mercy by what Kino presumed were temple priests. Kino recoiled as if from a snake, and gaped in astonishment.

The incongruously perky singing paused. Kino skulked at the fringe of the crowd. Had she stumbled upon a public execution? She suffered a wrenching flashback to the Renewah and their gallows. She shook it off, and tapped an onlooker on the shoulder.

"Is it allowed that we speak?" she stage-whispered over the loud cheering and clapping.

"Yes, but keep it down," he whispered back.

"What did those women do?"

"Hmm? Nothing." The man shrugged. "It's a sacrifice."

The woman's scream sent a chill down Kino's spine. Everybody had heard of human sacrifices, of course. But even she'd never _seen_ one! "They're killing her?" Kino blurted.

Her inclination had once been to declare her neutrality about such things, and still believed a visitor had no place dictating to others how to live their lives, but there were limits to tolerance, and she'd learned some hard lessons about responsibility. Already the outline of a plan was forming: Mr. Flores and the Travelers' League could rescue victims, while Gia and Tisiphone, and maybe her sister Furies, handled the wetwork. Horo and Hanyuu she'd keep as a reserve. Kino found these new alliances comforting, though she and Hermes were now obliged to answer their calls as well.

"Oh no!" the man answered emphatically, startling her out of her bellicose revery. "She'll be fine! It's all superficial. In a week, you'd never know anything happened. We don't commit murder up here, we're a deeply religious people."

The singing began again. Kino took out her scope and zoomed in. From a distance, it looked for the world as if the girl was being flayed alive, but the priests, if that's what they were, were not using sacrificial daggers. It was as frightful and uncivilized a display as she could imagine, yet for all the violence, the victim was still very much alive and kicking. And Kino didn't hear the hateful sound of a bloodthirsty mob jeering a criminal, very much the opposite.

She remembered a gruesome story that Hermes had read to her about a lottery. _How are the victims chosen here?_ However wary she was, even without Hermes, she was well armed. She decided to ask no further questions, but simply to watch. She worked her way around the periphery of the crowd for a better look, near enough to catch a whiff of ozone. As she did so, the first girl was carefully lowered, released, and solicitously led away. The altar was cleaned, as were the various tools, and the second girl cooperatively let her lily-white gown fall to her ankles.

The traveler watched, fascinated and appalled, as the second girl's brave silence rapidly dissolved to screeched curses, then to wails, and finally to full-throated screams. The traveler cursed too, under her breath, but she stood as if turned to stone, at least until her face was spattered with blood. Kino winced. Then, feeling lightheaded, she dabbed her face with a fingertip, sniffed her finger, then licked it.

_Strawberry syrup?_ Kino stifled a laugh of relief.

She watched, entranced, until the ceremony ended. The crowd went in search of other merriment. The second girl was released, and a vial of red wine splashed down her throat. She was cleaned and cared for, pampered even. Attendants helped her back into her white gown. and laid her onto a cart strewn with flowers. Kino followed the funereal cart on foot, and soon the cart's driver pronounced, "Awaken, Aria, for your new life has begun."

The afflicted young woman awoke, arose, and was admitted into what must be her home. Her parents gingerly embraced her.

_No sign of treachery, no bloodshed._ Kino thought. _Well, this is new!_

Over dinner, she asked about historical museums, her go-to when wanting to learn about a place.

Finding such a museum, Kino was not at all surprised to see exhibits of a sanguine past. After viewing some artifacts of primitive war and ritualized execution, she introduced herself to a curator, a tall man in a yellow turtleneck and tweed jacket, whose name tag read, "Sommer Insel."

"Our celebration this morning? I'm glad you were warned," he said. "We don't want our town to build a bad reputation among visitors."

"Well, so long as the girls I saw will recover."

"Of course they will! We're not barbarians, at least not anymore."

"I'm trying to understand what I saw today, Mr. Insel. Why do such a thing?"

"Fine question! People do all kinds of strange, inexplicable things, without really understanding why. Then it takes a psychologist, or an old mystic like me, to explain. Allow me to share our history." The middle-aged man, dignified despite his unruly mop of brown hair, escorted Kino about the museum. "We reasoning people see sacrifice as murder, and wasteful, but the primitive mind precedes logic and rationality. Consider: an earthquake or some calamity happens. Why? The gods must be displeased! Let us offer them something of value, tribute to placate them. So fathers slit their own sons' throats, and devour the roasted flesh." He waved a long arm at an oil painting portraying a father with a knife, another featuring a frightful statue of hewn wood. Kino peered at one showing a pale woman being tied to a pyre.

"That is a fine copy of 'Abraham and Isaac,' The tall man's voice was resonant and melodious. "There a page from the _Codex Magliabechiano,_ and here, 'The Sacrifice of Iphigenia.' King Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter so that his ships would have fair sailing to Troy."

"On his return," Kino continued, "his wife Clytemnestra murdered him in revenge. Their son Orestes slew her, so the Furies got fed up, and sought to end the cycle of bloodshed."

"I'm impressed!"

"Don't be," she smiled, wondering what this dusty old scholar would think if she told him _why_ she knew this story. "So that whole mess came about because of a human sacrifice?" The traveler shook her head. "Our actions can affect things even thousands of years later!"

"We are inevitably connected to the past," Mr. Insel nodded. "We've yet to encounter any culture of antiquity that did not, at some point, practice human sacrifice, though I suppose it's possible. Many of them have grown into high civilizations. As generations pass, societies start finding substitutes: prisoners of war, or slaves. Others use animals." Here the wild-haired scholar pointed out another set of paintings, featuring goats and lambs. "Hence the term, 'scapegoat.'"

"In fact, I'm aware of at least one religion founded on the premise that their deity's offspring manifested on Earth, only to be sadistically murdered and ritually cannibalized. The logic escapes me how that's supposed to make their god pleased with them, but..." the caretaker shrugged.

Kino made a mental note to herself to ask Hermes about such things. "And in your case?"

"We melded the sacrificial rite with the coming-of-age ordeal."

"Coming-of-age ordeal?"

"Ceremonies marking initiation into adulthood. They're common. Hallucinogenic drugs, journeys alone, or in more violent societies, scarification, body piercing, and genital mutilations. Becoming an adult means giving up parental protection. It means enduring suffering, whether from work and war, or childbirth. That's why children adore scary stories, and roller coasters, while adults lose interest."

"In order to be considered an adult here, a child has to go through _that?"_ Kino asked.

"No indeed! We may be mystics, but we're also modern creatures of reason and ethics."

"Tricky balance." Kino smiled.

"Hah! All our children are required to complete some ritual, for their own well-being. Those cultures that claim to have outgrown such things wonder why their offspring engage in all manner of dangerous and self-destructive behavior. The rites you witnessed today are our oldest, and by far the most brutal, but we do not coerce anyone to endure it, we provide. It is the most emphatic way to assert one's adulthood here; the child is savagely killed, so the adult may live. Some are called to it out of pride, or guilt, some from religious piety, personal ambition, sexual proclivities, some are simply in a hurry to grow up."

"Uh hmm." Kino nodded, examining a grand-scale canvas of ballet dancers performing naked before a rioting audience. "It was hard not to notice the uhm... sexual frankness of the ritual."

"Ah! This's from one of our artists, 'Premiere of _Le Sacre du Printemps._' Initiation into adulthood is also the initiation into sexuality," the curator affirmed.

"Makes sense. Why only women?"

"Our girls are initiated on the equinoxes, or thereabouts, boys on the solstices. We're egalitarian, though the rituals differ slightly. Since you mention that, I did my graduate thesis on a strictly patriarchal society. Their rite of passage for males was initiation into their military. I didn't find one for the females; I don't suppose they cared, or wanted women to stay childlike. But do you know, they routinely beat their children? Some as old as you, at home and at schools, with rather Freudian slabs of wood. It'd get them arrested around here. Sometimes they beat their women, too. Females were made subordinate, second-rate citizens in all but name. Homosexual or even effeminate males were execrated. I concluded that their thoroughly authoritarian culture sought to suppress every gentle feminine influence, under the guise of 'discipline.' They'd once been a slaver society, you see, and I expect that contaminated their thinking."

Kino thought uncomfortably of Gia and her parents, and how splendidly that had worked out.

"I appreciate your interest, traveler, but the museum is about to close. Before you go, may I ask about your tribe's initiation rites? Professional curiosity — how do your people observe life's transitions?"

Kino felt a shudder coming on, and strangled it. She checked to see if her guide had noticed. Seemingly not, and Kino was comforted that her self-mastery, weakening of late, had returned. She walked with Mr. Insel toward the exit.

"I hate talking about it, but you've been so forthcoming... the ceremony this morning scared me, Mr. Insel, but I've seen worse. My town lobotomized children at their twelfth birthday, or some similar procedure, making them very compliant, and vulnerable to suggestion."

"Crom!" The old man swore in a whisper, naming one of the gods whose portraits Kino had seen. "You're joking! No, I can tell by your tone you aren't. That's horrible! Then you—?"

"Ran away," Kino reassured him. "And recently, I helped put an end to the practice."

"Good for you," the man nodded. "I'd like to study these people."

They reached the threshold. "Thank you for the tour. Mr. Insel, is it against any taboos if I were to talk to Aria, the girl from— I mean woman from this morning? Ask her about it?"

"It would be fine. If I may presume," Mr. Insel clasped his hands and cocked an indulgent eyebrow, looking like some wise old owl. "Do make up your mind. The Revels conclude the day after tomorrow."

Kino blanched. Her eyes met his with a jerk. _Am I really going to say it? _"Yeah," Kino husked. "I am considering uhm... if it's allowed...?"

* * *

"You're _what...?"_ Hermes bleated.

It was the evening of the second day. Kino had returned to their little room in the inn, and to Hermes, his plastic tarp protecting the carpet, as the innkeeper had insisted. She sat on the floor next to him, and recounted what she'd learned of the town, and even from her brief interview with one of the sore and sleepy, but otherwise cheerful young women. And then she dropped this little bomb.

"They'll be coming for me tomorrow, before dawn. I've checked everything out thoroughly. There aren't any 'scary dark secrets.' No catches." She showed him the legal form she'd filled out. A medical check-up and doctor's signature had also been required.

"Uhh.. Kino? Why?"

"I was just reminded very forcefully what childhood means. It's something I've left behind, and glad for it."

"Hmm. You could have used some better parenting. You ran away from home before you were ready, and Master wasn't exactly the nurturing type. Kino, I'm sorry to keep beating this horse, but none of that was healthy for you at all."

"I know." Kino deliberately dismissed her poker face; she was getting better at taking it on and off. "You're helping a lot. Couldn't ask for a better big brother."

"Thank you. Then as your adopted brother, I'd like to understand why. You don't live here, what's the point? You've got papers that make you an emancipated minor, you've lived on your own for years. You've shot people, menstruated, flown a plane, almost got hanged, had sex. You drink wine, you've got PTSD... you're an adult."

"Am I?"

"Kino, I can't imagine anything more painful than being betrayed by your own parents and uprooting yourself. You were all grown up the day after we met."

"A grown up with issues, and recurring high school dreams. I ran away. I never finished my rite of passage. Now a golden opportunity's come, and I promised myself to stop running. I want the matter settled in my own mind. Most of all, I've got to put the whole hopeless wreck of my childhood behind me, forever!"

"What's involved? Any nooses this time, any scissors up orifices?"

"No." Kino got up and looked at herself in the room's dressing mirror. She was safely armored in her riding leathers, and her boots, for now. "No scars even. I'll be fine."

"Kino, torturers hang people upside-down so they won't pass out from the pain. Have you asked about the _other_ rituals?"

"Uhm... no."

"Hell's bells," Hermes muttered. "Inanna and Erishkigal all over again."

"What'd you say?"

"I said go get it over with."

"...Seriously?"

"You're not even asking about alternatives. It's obvious it's something you want to do. Run the bulls, get your tattoo, go."

"_'Want?'_ I'm petrified!"

"Need, then." Hermes sounded resigned. "I get it. I do. The Renewah scared you, so you want to confront it. You've already filled out the paperwork. You're just asking for my approval."

"I haven't signed it yet."

"But you're going to. Are you?"

"They won't let me out of it if I do. Once you sign, by their laws, you're obligated."

"Well, I'm not gonna rescue you this time," Hermes warned. "Sure we can't just drive away and find another flower patch?"

She moaned and sat back on the floor.

"Well, that's an answer! Kino, so long as you come back safe, it's fine with me. _If_ you go, I promise to keep it confidential, and take care of you while you recover. And I promise to make fun of you for it, the whole thing's absurd!"

"This is a mistake. I can't believe I'm doing this!" Kino grabbed a hotel pen and signed the form before she could stop herself. The deed done, she peered at the sight, and took a ragged breath.

"That's that," Hermes said. "How about something sensible before bed? We were on factoring."

"Oh. Okay, right." She found and opened her math book. _Clever Hermes_. "Uhm... so I get that x+two times y+three comes out to uhh... three-x plus xy plus six. But how the heck am I s'posed to reverse it and get those factors?"

"You can't," Hermes corrected, "because you forgot to multiply two by y. Think back to multiplying polynomials, go step by step."

* * *

**_Let us offer them something of value, tribute to placate them._**

* * *

"Awaken, Kino, for your new life has begun."

Outside, the funeral cart clattered away. The May Queen returned to her room in the early evening, wearing a simple white dress, her hair a tangled mess, and limping gingerly in padded sandals. Kino's clothes had been returned to Hermes' custody earlier. She immediately collapsed into bed.

"Well?" Hermes asked.

Kino whimpered.

"Nothing permanent, right?"

She raised her head from the pillow, her eyes puffy and her cheeks swollen. "I'm an idiot!" she croaked. "And if I ever talk about doing something stupid again, you remind me of this."

"Rite of passage all done?"

"Oh, hell yes! They're very thorough. I had no idea there were so many ways to almost kill someone."

"Huh?"

"I only saw the finale."

"The... _finale?_" Hermes struggled valiantly to choke back a fit of laughter. "Oh dear...!" he finally managed. "Congratulations on growing up. Did you cry?"

"Yes! And I'm going to again, right now."

"Good to see you _snrk!_ in touch with your feelings again."

"Oh, very funny!"

"Growing up can be hard." Just as he read without eyes, Hermes could deadpan without a face. Kino threw a sandal at him.

So Hermes was true to his word. And true to her word, Kino stuffed her face into the pillow and yowled like a skinned cat, until the howl broke into shoulder-shaking sobs. Then, paradoxically, she threw a childish tantrum, beating the bed with swollen fists and feet, while Hermes stifled odd gurgling noises.

In less than two minutes, she fell fast asleep.

As promised, by the following morning, the woman who called herself Kino the Traveler had recovered enough to ride Hermes to the next town. It was, of course, Hermes' merciless teasing that made her squirm in the saddle the whole way.

.


	2. Chapter 2

.

"Hey look, no hands!" Kino waved her arms in the air.

"Kiiinooo!" Hermes shouted. "You trying to break your arm again?"

"Oh, you worry too much!" Kino crowed, grabbing the handlebars. "C'mon! We're doing what you wanted."

"Huh?"

"Pass road! Twenty miles of it, high altitude, with the beach on the other side."

"In the state you're in?"

"I'll have you know," Kino sounded mildly offended, "I haven't had a drop of wine since the festival."

"The festival" was a euphemism, Hermes had concluded, for whatever mind-bending ordeal Kino had subjected herself to two towns back. He'd stopped making fun of her when he realized she'd become so foolhardy.

"That's not what I mean!" Hermes shouted over the roar of his own engine. They'd scarcely used his new turbocharger, but it looked like they'd be breaking it in today. The road ahead rose from the earth, clinging to the hillside like a vine.

"Whoa!" Hermes bellowed as they barely made a turn, his front wheel actually rumbling against the rough edge of the pavement. Beyond that waited the abyss.

"Okay, point. Time to concentrate," Kino admitted. "I don't need more hospital time, thank you." In an instant, the old Kino was back, fiercely focused and rational.

Together, they threaded the needle, lurching between rock face and verge, their conversation now exclusively grunts of effort. Finally Kino said, "you having fun, Hermes?"

"Now I am!" he exulted. "You're really good!"

"So are you!" And nothing more was said until they passed between two pillars of rock, almost like threshold guardians, and out to the beach.

"Whoo-hoo!" Both crowed as one.

"Now that was fun!" Hermes gushed.

They arrived at the strand. Kino revved the engine beneath her, carving and claiming a circle of the beach as their own, despite being well away from civilization.

She let him fall, gently, to the sand, and promptly started peeling away her sweaty riding gear.

"Kino? What're you doing? Someone will see you."

"Enjoy the view," she shouted as she ran to the water.

Kino bobbed and bounced around in the waves for almost an hour before she returned to Hermes' side, and then lay down in the sun.

"Whoo, that cold water helped! I haven't done that since I was a kid," she panted. "How many days squandered, when this was waiting for me all the time? Heartbreaking! Poor ocean," she said with mock pathos.

Hermes let her catch her breath before starting to nag her again. "Alright, who are you and what have you done with the real Kino?"

She smiled. "I have changed, haven't I?"

"First chance I've had to look over the damage." From the nape of her neck to the soles of her feet, Kino's skin was still speckled all over with scabs, and just under the surface, ugly bruises had turned yellow and purple. Ligature marks circled her ankles, but those had almost faded away. She looked swollen, but there was no sign of infection or of any lasting impairment or mutilation. "I know it'll all heal, but they really worked you over! I don't wanna be a pest, but it's high time you explained it to me. What on Earth did they do to you?"

"Oooonly if you don't tell. If someone's warned, they won't be surprised." Kino sounded manic. He'd not heard her like this since she was drugged, though she sounded more in control this time.

"Alright, I promise. Did they drug you?"

"Hah! I wish. They murdered me."

"Uh huh."

"Six or seven times, I lost count. Lemme see..." she started counting on her fingers.

"That isn't helpful. Start at the beginning."

"Well, you remember they stormed in the room and practically kidnapped me?"

"Yup. 'You brought it on yourself,' I said, and went right back to sleep."

"Uhm, black comedy was the order of the day." Kino turned over to sun her front, and brushed sand from herself. "So they took us to a bath house. There were two other 'May Queens' with me, I was a last-minute addition, y'see. Never did have the chance to meet 'em. I figured, 'fine. Ritual ablution before we get started with whatever boring ceremony they have in store.' Wrong! I now know what drowning feels like."

"Yeesh!"

"And while I'm fighting for air, I'm thinking, 'oooh, they bamboozled you, Kino! The whole thing was a scheme to make you drop your guard.'"

"Doesn't pass the common sense test. Needlessly complicated."

"Sure, in the cold light of reason. In the moment...?"

"Was it as bad as the gallows?"

"Yes. Same panic. So we get resuscitated. We've barely coughed the water our of our lungs, they towel us off and want us to dance circles around a pole!"

"Maypole," Hermes said.

"Huh?"

"It's called a Whitson-Morris dance."

Kino uncrossed the arms over her eyes to regard Hermes.

"I've been traveling a lot longer than you have," he explained.

"Hmm. It's on a cliff side. Beautiful sunrise. So I've still got the fact they're gonna beat the hell out of me by afternoon hanging over my head, and I now know they are _serious_ about it. And they wanna throw a party, with us the guests of honor. They're all wearing these silly costumes, and the three of us are running around starkers. I'm warmed up now and actually starting to enjoy all this. They threw me into a net, and bounced me up and down really high..."

"...and right off the cliff?"

"How'd you guess. There was another net. Fine nylon one so I couldn't see it on the way down. They don't miss a trick! And the rocks I clipped? Foam rubber. At this point I'm dry-heaving, and cursing up a storm. On the one hand, I gotta admire the show they're putting on, and on the other, I have _had it_ with these freaks, and their stupid, sadistic game! But the only way off the net is through this cave entrance, like a lava tube or something."

"Oh no!" Hermes moaned.

"Oh yes. I'm halfway through before I realize I'm crawling naked through tarantulas." Kino laughed without humor.

"Oh Kino...! Tell me they were fake."

"Did you know they hiss like cats? I didn't. 'Course, even then I knew tarantulas can't kill me; I don't think they even injected any venom. Could be worse. One of my counterparts got tagged on the upper lip."

"Aaghh!"

"So I tumble out of that mess. I am _screaming!_ And they're all waiting for me, wanting to party some more. They brush off the spiders, and start making up a song about 'brother weaver giving the May Queen a kiss.' That's when I started laughing."

"You mean like... you were losing your sanity?"

"That's what I thought. So then—"

"Kino, I don't want to hear any more."

"Didn't expect you to have a weak stomach."

"You're somebody I care about."

"Aww!" Kino reached out and patted a whitewall. "Well, it just went on and on like that: party, die, party again, keep me from going into shock, laugh, cry, curse a blue streak. They thought it was funny how many languages I can cuss in. By then I knew they weren't really gonna kill me. The 'sacrifice' is all symbolic. Hey, do you know this Crom?"

"Ugh! Kino, I'm a creature of reason. I don't get on with the 'let's keep the gods happy by killing something' crowd, okay? I mean, it's like a cat giving you a dead sparrow. Would you be pleased if some royal creep was incinerating hecatombs in your name while kids are going hungry? Wanna make me happy, Kino? Recite the order of operations in my name."

"Parentheses, multiplication, division, addition, then subtraction," Kino chanted, his dutiful student. "What's a hecatomb?"

"A hundred oxes or cows."

"Oh, how wasteful!" Kino scoffed.

"Yes, but we digress. You were dancing around naked to please Crom Cruach...?"

"Right. There was some other symbolism in there too. I think I could spend a lot of my life decrypting it, but I got the gist of what they were trying to tell me."

"Don't sign away your rights to freaky cultists?"

"Heh heh! 'Stop worrying.' I mean, it was just... so completely over the top, it was _hilarious!_ I realized, 'this is the worst day of my life. It cannot possibly ever get any worse.'" And Kino was laughing even as she said it. "Hermes, I've not had an easy life — the coliseum, Christine, the time I hid in that chigger nest, but even I don't get killed three times an hour! The day I die for real won't be _that_ bad! So why was I so afraid? Why the hell was I carrying around eight knives, for pity's sake? That's kid stuff! I kept the Swiss Army knife, my lucky trick gun-knife, and the throwing knife, 'cause it's fun. Sold the rest. What was I thinking?"

"Huh," Hermes sounded mildly impressed. "Still, that's their idea of growing up? Six hours straight of torture and terrorizing, and you're grateful?"

"Completely irrational," Kino threw up her hands in a lying-down shrug.

"I was gonna say 'primitive.'"

"They were once a warlike people. They wanted warriors who'd keep their heads even in their last moments, and they just kept it up. When they finally got around to the mock public execution at the end, I wasn't scared at all anymore, I just wanted it over with. I've seen the real thing. That was so impersonal and inhuman it was degrading. I think that's what upset me about the schools too — I refuse to be processed like a sausage. _This_ was theatrical, intimate, people cheering me on, scalding fake blood and all. Oh, it hurt plenty! Much worse than breaking my arm. My hide was still smarting from the tear gas."

"Tear gas?"

"Oh, gas chamber just before, some-such chemical irritant. Told'ja they don't miss a trick. Renewah or somebody ever try to torture me, they're in for a rude surprise."

"Humanity!" Hermes swore amiably. "Endlessly perverse."

"Maybe not. Didn't you read me a story where somebody had lost a lover, and sought out a second hardship? He said it was easier carrying a heavy burden in both hands than in just one."

"I forget. Sounds like Hemingway, but given how he died, his advice is suspect."

"Now I can live my life!" She sat up. "For example, — _ow!_ — who cares if some cop comes by and writes me a ticket for indecent exposure. So what? I feel like getting some sun."

"I think you're gonna need to balance this out with some caution. Don't let yourself get too careless."

She stood, wincing as her bruised feet took her weight again. "Did I drive us off a cliff? I'm still me, Hermes."

"Put your clothes back on, I might start to believe you."

Kino smirked, but complied, stiffly and slowly. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

"Didn't. You're pretty, even with all the bruises. So, what will you do now?"

"Keep traveling, of course! I found another piece of what I was looking for." She finished dressing by strapping on her riding gloves. "Let's go find the rest."

"Glad to hear it. Well, it's my pleasure to take you there!" Hermes answered.

With that, Kino bounded onto the saddle— "ow...! Still sore."

"Reckless," Hermes cautioned.

She cackled back and kick-started the engine.

* * *

**_People do all kinds of strange, inexplicable things, without really understanding why. _**

**_— Allow me to share our history._**

* * *

.


End file.
